Prepare to face a new set of challenges in this brand-new Pokemon world as you square off against new enemies and rivals, forge new friendships, and create teams to travel the world with on your quest of discovery

The chateau had been a chore thus far, but Krikka knew from past experience that it was only going to get much worse. There she stood in front of the Ruined Passage, a specific section of the nonsensical building that was known for making even the rest of its structure look sane in comparison. It seemed to feel like being a normal hall on this day, but she wondered how long that would last. She knew not how the house worked, but she knew enough to recognize the infamous passage when she saw it even if it looked nothing like how it did in her first encounter with it. The truly was not looking forward to this part of the trip, especially since she didn't have any unwitting powerhouses to guide her this time around. It seemed she was the powerhouse now, at least compared to the individuals with her. It was supposed to be her job to do the protecting, which wasn't something she was happy about; and worse, she had gone and made things worse for herself by injuring both of them, one of which to the point of having to be carried.

She knew Goro no longer trusted her if he ever did in the first place, and Solus was unconscious. Odds were she would be getting no help if she got herself into any trouble; she couldn't recall the details, but she had dug herself into a hole and would have to work her way out of it. She would have considered turning back if not for her knowledge that "back" wasn't exactly a thing that existed in this place; unfortunately, her only option was forward. "Keep your guard up. This place is stupid," she spoke bitterly, quick and to the point without even making eye contact with the croagunk. Then without a moment's wait she started off down the hall, expecting Goro to follow her. He didn't have much of a choice at the moment, given his choices were to stick with the one capable of properly fending off all the ghosts and the apparent occasional psychic... or going off on his own and taking his chances. He was a brute, but Krikka doubted he was actually stupid enough to throw away all sense of self-preservation.

Solus was showing signs of life in the form of subtle movements and occasional noises, which had to be a good sign. Probably. The umbreon could only assume he wouldn't be happy about his condition when he finally woke up, but he'd just have to deal with it. At the moment, there were far more important things to worry about than the feelings of her allies... or herself, for that matter. She focused solely on the hall and tried to ignore the still-looming confusion regarding her own actions; she couldn't see any end to the path despite the light of candles running along the walls. There were no doors in sight either, leaving an empty hallway of indiscernible length to traverse. She knew that could change at any moment, but it was still a bit disheartening to see. She doubted moving forward at a faster pace would actually help to speed things along, so she kept her stride relatively low so as not to waste any energy. She had a lot of dead weight to carry anyway, which would have made running considerably more tasking than normal. She knew the big heap of buizel was burdening her by her own doing, but that wouldn't stop her from blaming him for it.

She wondered if Solus would stay with her after this... or Goro... or if they would both leave. Maybe she could regain their favor if she stayed true to her word and did what she had come here to do. Or maybe they'd leave, in which case why did she even care? It wasn't like she needed anyone else to help her; sure, the assistance was nice, but it was far from a requirement. She had managed just fine on her own before meeting either of them, and at least one of them wasn't useful for much more than entertainment. The more she thought about it, the more she decided her guilt and concern were misplaced, and the more those feelings faded away. If her two allies left her, it didn't matter; if they died, it didn't matter; if they decided to stay with her, good for them, but it still didn't matter. All she needed was herself, and all she needed to look out for was herself.

Left defenseless to the sudden melee attack in the oppressing aura of darkness, Nevi could do naught but let out a quiet and very unintimidating "Eep" as the croagunk grasped her horn and dragged her into him. The following punch elicited no sound but had a clear enough impact, sending her reeling away. She didn't get far before having a spike plunged into her waist, the resulting pain dropping her flat to the ground. She fell with the lifeless grace of a strip of cloth in the wind, still conscious but struggling with the sudden and unexpected onslaught. Krikka would have continued the assault if not for her similarly weary state, but it seemed she had a moment to breathe since the froslass wasn't making any moves to counterattack. She couldn't help but wonder, based on the sudden display of weakness, if the fight was already over. She doubted it would be so easy, and a familiar voice soon seemed to confirm this.

"How can you all be so..." Nevi spoke with a sense of disbelief in her voice, pushing away from the ground with her ribbon-like arms and managing to lift herself just a bit before hesitating. She planted her left hand into the ground while placing the right against her head and shutting her eyes in apparent pain. Her raised arm fell limp and her eyes struggled open, staring down at her open hand in front of her.

Krikka chuckled at the display. She already knew what it was interrupting the foe and didn't care what she had to say in the first place. The umbreon lifted her pained leg and wiped a paw across her mouth in an attempt to clean away some of the blood, then spoke: "What's the matter, headache?" She seemed to garner the attention of Nevi, whose head snapped up to face her with a glare. Goro had gotten in a solid hit or two before being followed up by a familiar toxic weapon utilized by Solus, both surely adding to the severity of the poison. "Blurry vision, weakness, pain... The confusion'll hit you soon if it hasn't already, and if you could somehow power through all that, you've also been stabbed in an area full of vitals. Quit now and you can live, but the show's over," she continued and stepped forward, her every word laced with condescending pride and confidence now that things were starting to look good for her side. She continued toward the froslass in silence until prompted to stop by a quiet... laugh? No, it was more like the sound of confusion or realization, of surprise.

"Huh."

Actually, it sounded sarcastic. "You all are toxic in more ways than one," stated Nevi in a shaky voice. At first, Krikka thought the wavering of her words was due to her poor physical shape, but it became clear that the turmoil was emotional as she went on. "But you got one thing wrong," the feeble emotion in her voice began to melt away as she raised off the ground in an unnaturally fluid, almost lifeless motion that could only be described as ethereal. Gaze flitting between the three surrounding her, the froslass raised her left hand and grasped the spike still stuck in her body. "You don't know anything about my anatomy. There's nothing vital here," she mocked Krikka's statement as she hesitantly pulled the foreign object out of her. The hail was dying down by now, yet it seemed the froslass herself would not parallel her storm and wasn't ready to fade away just yet.

The good feeling inside Krikka disappeared.

In a flash, Nevi's form froze with shards of ice. There was an almost immediate response from Krikka in the form of another dark pulse, to which Nevi responded by pulling her arms up in a blocking pose; the resulting contact of the attack sprayed a black haze around her, hiding its effects from view for a brief moment before a sudden swirling wind tore through it and revealed her unscathed with barely a crack in her armor. In a sudden and blinding motion, she spun and hurled the spike at Solus, whipping her other arm at Goro and sending a flurry of pointed ice shards snapping off her body and flying toward him. Krikka reacted as fast as she could with another dark blast, but Nevi was much faster than her. Continuing in her elegant clockwise twirl, Nevi threw her left arm up at the umbreon and sent a wave of freezing air cutting through the lingering hail; it overwhelmed and barreled through the opposing attack before continuing straight into Krikka, causing her to skid back along the icy floor despite bracing herself and fighting against it with every ounce of effort she had.

Krikka could feel the fur of her ears and chest freeze, and the freezing pain and force of the gust of wind was enough to drop her to a kneel on her weak leg. However, she was still upright and wasn't frosted to the point of restricted movement. Despite all her showmanship, Nevi was weakening. Krikka's aura flickered for a moment before lighting back up as she loosed another pulse toward the froslass. She knew by now that she wouldn't win a contest with those blizzard winds, but she just needed to be threatening enough to make herself the center of attention and give the others a chance to right themselves and do something. Sure enough, Nevi lifted her other arm and sent an even more powerful wave of wind to intercept the darkness, but Krikka was starting to adapt to this opponent's capabilities. The second her shot went out, she bolted to the right; while she barely got a few feet before tumbling down to the ground with the vivid black fading from around her, she managed to clear the path of the bone-chilling wind.

Even the outer edge of the blizzard was painful. The umbreon stumbled up to her legs as fast as she could to show she was still a threat that demanded attention, but Nevi's arms had already dropped and she was beginning to turn away from what probably looked like a defeated and harmless foe. Krikka growled, fur bristled and flitting wisps of shadow beginning to seep from her body. Nevi paused, attention momentarily drawn back to her, waiting to see what she would do.

In truth, Krikka didn't have much left in her, but she just needed the nuisance opposing her to believe otherwise.

The small window of clarity that had appeared in Goro's mind vanished nearly as quickly as it appeared. The hits he had taken from Nevi were affecting him heavily - his vision was blurry, spotty around the edges, and his body felt lethargic despite its minute shivering. He stumbled forward drunkenly after letting loose a bullet punch to the back of the froslass' skull, veering to the side slightly. All he could think about was how awful he was for raising his hand to Nevi. Pretty, gentle, helpful Nevi, who had helped him up after he was knocked down and guided him and his companions to their destination safely. His sudden infatuation for her seemed to be completely natural once again. The brief realization that it was her who was making him feel this way, the fact that she had somehow gotten into his head escaped his grasp as quickly as it had graced it.

In contrast to Krikka, who was leading the fight despite taking more damage than him, and Solus, who seemed to appear out of nowhere to capitalize on Goro's sloppy attack, he was in a bad way. His head was throbbing and leaking warm blood down the side of his face and down his neck - he didn't know how bad the wound was, but if he had to guess it probably looked gruesome. His body was covered in lengthy if shallow cuts courtesy of stormy ice shards that he'd been guided into, and he knew from bloody experience that he wasn't far from unconsciousness. Couple that with how his mind seemed to be dominated with thoughts of his enemy and his chances of further contributing to the fight were slim to none. It took much of his strength just to keep on his feet, turning to take in the sight of Nevi face down on the ground. He'd caught a large flash of orange and yellow after his punch and assumed it was Solus getting involved, but it was either a trick of the light or the buizel had vanished from the scene of the crime quite quickly.

It left him in the morbid position of being closest to Nevi as she began to slowly push herself up off the ground before halting awkwardly, seemingly in pain. As he stood half-hunched over a few paces away from the ghost type, he could only grimace as fresh waves of guilt and regret washed over him. What had he been thinking? Krikka's voice spoke up quickly, distracting him from his thoughts as she began to taunt their downed enemy. It was hard to listen to. Nevi replied with a biting retort, and despite himself, he flinched at her words. Toxic in more ways than one. He couldn't bring himself to disagree with her.

Following her dramatic statement, she rose up from the ground fluidly and the battle exploded into action once more. Given his weakened state, he was reduced to spectating as Nevi was covered by another flash of ice, just like the last time she had adorned her armor. Krikka fired another dark shockwave with impressive reaction speed, but it was for naught. The sudden action filled him with a desperate energy, but when Nevi turned her sights on him after hurling a spike in a seemingly random direction, he froze like a buneary faced with a pyroar. When a storm of icy spikes was launched at him with deadly precision, however, his body acted where his mind had blanked. The croagunk threw himself desperately to the side, but he was unable to dodge all of the icy shards aimed at him. He felt a hot flash of agony and shock when one shard was lodged firmly into the side of his upper right arm, and another stuck sideways in his right thigh. They lanced into him and they stuck. Another clipped his hip, but in his shock and pain, he didn't even notice it. Instead, he was reduced to landing hard on his stomach before curling up on the cold floor with his eyes clenched shut in agony. A low groan sounded out from underneath him, and it was all he could do to grind his forehead edgewise against the floor, turning his head to keep his eyes on Nevi - another attack could be coming.

But no - Krikka was keeping Nevi busy yet again. Rashly, foolishly, he tried to get up and do something, but his arm and thigh screamed in protest. They felt like they were on fire: cold fire. It bit and burnt and froze all at the same time, and it was the most pain he'd ever been in. The best he could manage was bringing himself up to his hands and knees, watching the showdown in front of him helplessly. It struck him, then, how brave and deadly Nevi was. Tricked, outnumbered, and placed in a very precarious situation, she still fought back. And she fought back well. The same umbreon that had defeated him so soundly was visibly struggling to keep pace with her, even as weakened as Nevi had to be. He tried to fight against the tidal wave of emotion that he felt for her. The admiration, the guilt, the infatuation, the regret, everything. But even armed with his suffering and surprise, he couldn't manage it. Given his position, he could perhaps manage an earthquake and catch the froslass off guard somehow, or even just bum rush her again in an effort to distract her... but he couldn't bring himself to even try. Goro was immobilized, struck shock still. He lay on his hands and knees as he stared transfixed at Nevi, breathing heavily in exhaustion, shivering from the cold inside him and the icy spikes lodged into him, bleeding from a half dozen wounds.

Despite the sudden beating she’d just taken Nevi seemed to be in good enough condition to keep talking, which was a little more than disappointing to Solus. It was more concerning than anything, given the comparative state that he and his allies were in. While she was clearly badly wounded, so was everyone else, and she was still strong enough to take three foes at once. None of this seemed to bother Krikka, though, as she was laughing at the Ghost-type. The umbreon spoke confidently; sure she knew how Nevi was suffering and sure that the battle was winding down to an end. Solus was quite skeptical.

His skepticism was completely justified and validated as Nevi retorted Krikka’s statement before suddenly restoring her spiked ice armour. Despite her assumption that the fight had been over, Krikka didn’t hesitate to respond with a Dark Pulse, although it didn’t amount to much. Before anyone else could respond, Nevi retaliated with impressive speed, hurling the spike Solus had stabbed her with back at him. He saw that she was doing something else as well but couldn’t afford to dedicate any real effort in watching her while he tried to evade receiving the same injury he’d given her.

Solus blasted the airborne thorn with his newest move—Ice Beam. The ice the projectile accumulated added significant weight to it, reducing its velocity and increasing the rate at which it lost altitude. He sidestepped the slowed projectile and it clattered to the frost-covered wooden floor, the shell of ice around it shattering with the impact. Safe from any incoming attacks for the moment, Solus assessed the situation following Nevi’s sudden assault. Goro had dodged a fair number of Nevi’s icy spikes but didn’t manage to evade the full arsenal, taking two in his right leg and arm. Useless.

Krikka was, at the moment, Nevi’s primary target. They were going back and forth with Blizzards and Dark Pulses, through it almost seemed as though Krikka was losing. As the umbreon dropped to the floor Nevi began to turn her attention elsewhere. Realising that, given Goro’s current status, he was the next greatest threat, Solus tensed. He scrambled to the floor to pick up the poison thorn again, though he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it so long as Nevi’s ice armour was still around. He relaxed a bit as Krikka once again drew the Ghost-type’s attention by preparing another attack. Banking on the poison to do the real damage, Solus moved directly opposite of Krikka and blasted Nevi in the back with his Ice Beam. It wouldn’t do much damage, but that wasn’t really his intention. He just hoped Krikka would continue to aid in diverting their enemy’s attention.